Medicine
and Health Care for the Mani People
The Mani people lead their lives very
close to nature. They get their food, housing, and clothing material from the
forest they live in. However, that is
not all they get from their forest, but also
they are able to obtain different types of medicines they use.
For
pregnancies, they have a herbal medicine
that is much sought-after by Thais and Malays in the region. As for illnesses,
the Mani do not use much medicine, but they do
use a sort of hydrotherapy and a fire therapy. The Mani people knows how to use
the plants growing in their jungle to cure a variety of diseases. They believe
that the cause of disease is an evil spirit so the medicines work by driving
out such spirits. The Mani believe that the same effect can also be
accomplished by wearing hua plai or kled klin, or by smearing ash on the
sufferer's body and face, or by doing the same to everybody involved before
moving an entire village to a new location.
Death
When a clan member dies for the Mani
people, they will then close the leaf on the dead person’s
hut. Sometimes
they will even build the dead clan’s member a
new hut to receive the body. Once the
deceased has been placed in the hut with his or her personal possessions, the
hut is closed on all sides with leaves and then set on fire. After the hut and body are ashes, the members of the village will leave that setting
and move to a new location. Before they
do so, they will tell the corpse: "Don't follow us. You stay on your own
here and we on our own. You and we cannot stay together." When moving
away, they will keep looking back in the belief that the dead in the form of an
evil spirit would otherwise follow them.
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